On Earth Day I picked up trash on a major highway. The most debris was pieces of tires. Next was coffee cups. I think that the these companies, trucking and fast food, shoud be charged back for the cleanup.

Back to trash. The best solution would be for responsible parents to set good examples for their children.
I think that's why Canadians don't litter. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the last generation of responsible parents in the U.S. are now senior citizens.
We've had too many decades now of nobody being held responsible for anything they do. (Anybody else ready for a change?)

Obviously, the shoplifting solution wouldn't be reasonable for littering since only one out of a million people, if that, would get caught.
You might know that I'm not a big government person, but it looks like it's gonna be here for a while.
I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but I propose a new, separate, highly visible, completely unavoidable tax devoted to cleanup.
It has to be new and separate, so that people could reduce or eliminate it by keeping their region clean or spotless.
There would be no incentive to do so if this money were just shuffled around from one part of the budget to another.
The cleanup crews will be highly visible, wearing slogans such as, "Put me out of work - don't litter," or, "It's your tax dollars, slob."
The tax will not be hidden in the property tax, which nobody sees, anyway, because that's all snuck into their mortgage payments.
It would make no sense to shackle just the homeowners with this since the homeowners probably do the least littering.
Every household will receive a separate bill, and the bill will be proportional to the number of people in the household,
from infants on up. Hey, it's people who litter, not the dwelling. Not paying the bill will get your utilities shut off.

Sound harsh? Well, you could try not littering.

We need a bumber sticker! Any ideas. How about 'No if and's or butts about it. Stop littering!'

For those who are interested.. reason to pickup litter but especially aluminum cans:
You can sell the aluminum cans you find.
24 aluminum cans in a pound. 40 cents per pound.
It takes about 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than it takes to make new ones.

I continue to see smokers tossing cigarette butts out the windows of their cars while driving. What are you guys thinking! I am not sure how to get them to stop other than making ashtrays work better so they will want to use them.

Yesterday at a local Wawa convenience store someone tossed a cig butt on the ground before entering and an employee asked if they would "please be considerate of the property and pick up the butt and toss it in the trash. We do our best to keep the place clean for you and I trust you like coming here partly because of the cleanliness" I almost fell over!

A while ago, i was walking down the street, and there was this old man emptying his pockets on the floor!!
I couldn't believe my eyes
I'm not a confrontational person, but i had to go and say something!!
I asked him what he was doing.
And he actually said, he thought our street was too clean!!!
I thought he was joking!!!
he then explained, that if a street sweeper came, what would he sweep!!
I explained that we don't have one of those.
He said yes you have i start tomorrow!!! LOL LOL

That actually happened LOL

I was driving into work after lunch and right in front of me a car full of kids threw a paper cup with crap spilling out of it at the stop sign and then took off! What the Hell? I think some people just lose IQ points when they get together with their friends (especially if they don't have many points to start with)

I think we got to start spreading the don't pollute MESSAGE with the children.... what ever happened to Woodsy Owl? I know he is still around but don't see the PSA's as much anymore....I say bring back WOODSY OWL........and......
GIVE A HOOT. DON'T POLLUTE!!!!!
FOR MORE INFO:
http://www.fs.fed.us/spf/woodsy/

Makes me think...
In just one day 230,000 cigarette butts were collected from California beaches during the 2000 Coastal Cleanup Day. Cigarette butts were the number one trash item found (http://www.cigarettelitter.org).

I believe its important to lead by example. An example of this I'd like to praise is a recent good dead by the boy scouts in this recent article titled:
"All Aboard! Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts Help Keep Moore County, NC, Tracks Beautiful"

As the Carolina Dinner Train wound its way through the Moore County, North Carolina, countryside, passengers were treated to views of wooded glens and peaceful small towns while enjoying fine dining under the Victorian lights of their stately dining cars. But passengers also looked out the train windows to see garbage, old tires and rusted car parts alongside the train tracks.

Keep Moore County Beautiful’s former Executive Director Linda Hubbard decided to do something to correct this blight on her community. “What was needed was a large group to take part,” she said.

Hubbard contacted Bill Bartosh, general manager of the Aberdeen, Carolina & Western Railroad and Jerry Butts, area director of the Boy Scouts of America, to discuss the possibility of scout troops cleaning up sections of the tracks.

The scouts came aboard eagerly for a “Trash Trek,” and set out to clear a 23-mile stretch of track. More than 250 Moore County Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and their leaders, collected more than 119 bags of trash and waste along the railroad, from Aberdeen to Seven Lakes.

Keep Moore County Beautiful enlisted the help of community leaders and organizations to remove some of the larger littered items, such as junked cars and large metal pieces, that the scouts could not remove. The scouts also netted points toward their Railroad Badge and Good Turn Badge.

As a reward for their hard work, the scouts and their leaders were treated to a special train ride and luncheon aboard the Carolina Dinner Train. For many of the boys, this was their first time on a train.

While on vacation with friends, I found out that one smoker was tossing the butts on the ground along with the match. It took a week to actually get her to change her habit of tossing the cig out on the ground.

I had to constantly reminder. For each time I caught her I would toss trash in her condo room! She got the message.

Kane, while I agree that littering is one of this country's biggest environmental problems, I think that building support for an active clean-up program begins with positive actions. Your story above, while humorous, may not get you closer to your proposed goals. In the future, it may be more effective, and probably safer, to avoid these types of confrontations.

We all have stories of littering we've seen. The question is what to do about it. One thing I am beginning to work on is to get our state (KS) to introduce legislation requiring pickup trucks to have some kind of netting over the open bed. It amazes me that people think their trash and even valuables will stay put in the vortice of wind coming around the truck cab. I honestly think this would dramatically reduce our roadside garbage problem. Right now I'm trying to figure out a way to quanitify the problem to help make the case. Please consider doing the same thing in your state.

Another way to combat litter is to volunteer for a local Adopt-a-Highway program (it's a bit less risky than confrontation). That said, a friend of my wife saw me walking along the road in an orange vest picking up litter and thought maybe I was doing community service for a DUI.

PA's program is at http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Internet/Bure...

You're a bit ballsier than I am Kane. Good examples though. I'll try out all the approaches except the one about letting air out of the tires. I think a lot of smokers don't consider thorowing out their butts as littering.

I followed a person several blocks to their home after picking up the trash they tossed out the window of their car. When they got out I did too and handed them the trash. I asked them if I could stop by later and toss trash in their yard. They got the picture very quickly and were embarrassed as their neighbor was standing by listening to our conversation. I think he too is an advocate now. He was very apologetic.

I was in a parking lot when a older lady, 50ish emptied her cigarette holder out the window and then took off. I took the plastic off my shirts from the cleaner and put the butts in the plastic and ran up to the car as she sat waiting for the light to exit the shopping mall. I knocked on the window and handed her the plastic with the butts in it telling her she dropped something of hers. She was so embarrased and apoligized telling me when she did it she knew it was wrong. She was not going to do it again.

On a warm day, I was in my honda car at a traffic light with a car next to me. The two guys were listening to music and both were smoking a cigarette. He then tossed it out the window.

Well, I asked him politely to pick it up as littering was not good. He told me where to go. So I opened my door and picked it up. Closing my door and then tossed the butt in his window. (the cigarette was still lit) He tried desperately to pick it off his lap yelling the whole time. The light changed and I took off. The story does not end here. 100 yards later I hit another light and looked in my rearview mirror and saw the car fracing from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds. The guy got out of the car and well, it wasn't pretty. He was much bigger than I was. Although he was mad and wanted to smash my car, I did not wait to find out and made aa right on red.